


Five times Sherlock and Lestrade never met. Three: Dagger to the heart

by grassle



Series: Five times Sherlock and Lestrade never met [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:50:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassle/pseuds/grassle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disclaimer: I don't own these characters from the BBC's Sherlock</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <i>“The symbol perfects itself by the accumulation of approximations. As such, it is comparable to a spiral, or rather, a solenoid, which each repetition brings closer to its target.”</i></p>
<p> Gilbert Durand, <i>L'Imagination symbolique</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Five times Sherlock and Lestrade never met. Three: Dagger to the heart

_Christ, I’m gasping._

Lestrade didn’t know if it was the new prework gym and postwork swimming routine – three circuits that morning; that evening could splash right off – or being back in a university that was making him so desperate for a fag. He was smoking more lately, although he’d have thought the healthy exercise kick, started, yeah, okay, with the finding of the First Grey Hair of the Thirties, so as not to find the First Sagging Bit of the Thirties would have made him crave less, not more.

Oh, no, look: the face of the late-middle-aged man coming to join him made him understand that with new responsibility – and taking on someone’s else’s shirked responsibility – came greater…smoking.

“Right, Tonto.” DI Hunter wore that sour smile that stretched his thin skin tighter. “I’ve schmoozed your path clear. Just get all the statements from these spotty, hairy, work-shy tossers and the black in the big turban, don’t piss off any bigwigs, and get back to the station. Understand?”

“But sir, I’ve been thinking about what we’ve got so far, and I’m not sure –”

Hunter made his I’m-not-listening gesture as he strode off, overcoat flapping, a smear of beige against the concrete and granite of the Imperial College campus, especially this ancient Fleming Building. And sod, Lestrade realized his new rain mac and suit and shirt and tie, all purchased together from the same shop, part of his promotion wardrobe, made him look a bit like his boss.

He cast a quick look round at the detective constables. Did they think their new sergeant was toadying to the inspector? He wasn’t: just had no knowledge or fashion or clothes, and even less interest. He was bisexual, he’d discovered, but not that gay. Bollocks. First case with him leading, and him agonising over his sartorial choices worse than any woman. Julie, DC Morris, gave him a sympathetic look. He acknowledged it with a wry grin, not rolling his eyes to criticise his superior officer, but just keeping her on side.

“Try and keep that lot of ghouls back,” he said, indicating the small group of students clustering around the back of the building where the officers were working. He sincerely doubted they were all students of the late doctor, in mourning at the bloke’s having been found dead at the bottom of the building’s emergency exit staircase.

They were staring at him, he thought, or someone was… He took a good look at the small group, most of them calling questions to the officers, some obviously from the college newspaper, and some of them science nerds in their fleecy red sweatshirts with the college logo on, like that tall, thin one at the back he almost imagined he could feel looking at him. Despite not even being able to see the kid’s eyes, what with the ubiquitous fringe and the hood, he shivered.

“The body’s gone. Don’t know what that lot think they’ll see.” Morris rejoined him. “Message from uniform: the head of security says that key to the fire door found near the body was Dr Ashby’s. He used that side fire door more than the main one. That mate of his, Professor Dutta?”

“Dr Dutta. Yeah?”

“Well, he works next door in that big Chemistry One building, and he has a key to the side door of that to get out quicker at night.”

“Nearer to the exit close to the South Ken. tube, I suppose. But seems a bit lax.”

“Yeah. The security geezer probably is. Sounds it, Johns said. Seems Dutta and Ashby were mates…”

Lestrade nodded. He knew Dutta had suggested Ashby come to Imperial for a change of scene.

“So Dutta got him a key too. Easier to visit each other when they were working or working late, and yeah, more convenient for the exit you said.”

Lestrade took a look around the bit of the campus visible from where they were. Prestigious it might be, but it seemed soulless to him. Or maybe he was prejudiced against universities after having dropped out of his. Whatever. He reentered the fire exit and walked up and down the narrow stairs again. Okay, they were poorly lit. Cramped. But if it was a routine habit of Ashby’s, why had he suddenly slipped and broken his neck? He decided to reexamine the body as well, later. He’d only had time for a cursory look, and of course wasn’t that experienced, but that allegedly broken neck hadn’t seemed…

At least these students, Dr Ashby’s tutorial group questioned in his teaching room, were forthcoming – even if they hadn’t a great deal to tell him. They hadn’t seen anything. Hardly surprising, all that hair falling in their eyes. That blond, his lank fringe caught on his stupid little goatee beard! And…Lestrade was turning into his father. Wow. Another thing to watch out for.

“He was a decent bloke. Really into the subject and wanted us to be. Enthusiastic. Bit, I don’t know, sad looking?”

And the second, “No, never saw him socially. I don’t know. I never saw his wife. Never saw him with anyone. Not like that.”

And the blond, “I still use his textbook, this book. I had it at school. It’s good.”

And they all agreed on that. And that maybe last week he’d seemed a bit down? As if he had something on his mind? Always the case, with an unexpected death. People wanted to help. The kids fell silent as a well-dressed, dark-skinned man in a turban knocked and came in. Dr Dutta. He was somber, quiet, as someone would be who’d found the body of his friend first thing in the morning and was chastising himself for not having popped across to visit him last night, but had assumed when David didn’t come, he was working, or…

The crowd had thinned a little by the time Lestrade reemerged, the few remaining arguing they had a right to walk where they wanted on campus, cops couldn’t tell them what to do, couldn’t oppress people, their taxes paid their wages… Your parents’ taxes, Lestrade wanted to say. The tall one, the hood of his top covering his head and pulled to with the drawstring, was still there. Still huddling at the back. Lestrade felt anew the force of that, not even gaze – still couldn’t see him – but presence. He wondered who the overgrown kid was.

“So. Old staircase, old building. It was dark. He was new here, didn’t know the place well. Not fitting in yet, work not going well, recently lost an old friend, down, pissed off that Indian bloke was more well-known than him, maybe marriage problems, wife didn’t wanna come to London, he was drinking…”

“Keep your bloody voice down!” Lestrade hissed at DC Haynes. Passed over for promotion for all he acted the cold cynic, just like Hunter, and had their boss’s one-stop-shop case-solving routine down pat. “And stop the multiple-choice routine. You sodding look like you’re teaching a class on what we’re doing!” He made a discreet sign at the students. “And I’m not so sure it’s that simple. He had no reason to be envious of someone writing textbooks. Seems he just wrote that one to spread his love of the subject. And look at this list.”

As he showed Haynes the list of Dr Ashby’s published original research Dr Dutta had dictated to him, he caught out of the corner of his eye the tall student nodding vigorously. But as he turned fully to look and maybe ask the earwigging git if he thought this was laid on for his amusement, he saw a portly fifty-something man approaching, beckoning him to one side. It was the dean, sparing him a few minutes from seeking out industrial partners for the college, caring, sharing, in full view of the spectators, to whom he nodded and smiled. People either ignored him or looked confused.

He was concerned: Dr Dutta had just told him he’d been questioned, he did so hope not interrogated. Not that he could see why the police were still here for an accident, because just as there was no depression or anxiety that might have caused Dr Ashby to be careless and so slip, there was certainly no notion of staff rivalry or unpleasantness, or, perish the thought, racism in this multicultural environment. Why, did the inspector – sergeant, really? – know the statistical breakdown of their students, both under and postgraduate, by countries of origin? And, you know, the two men had been close friends since their undergraduate days at Cambridge, and Dutta had suggested Ashby come here to be near a friend. Indeed. The police might as well go –

“Greg!” This time Lestrade did roll his eyes, at Haynes’s unprofessionalism, holding out the mobile and rushing up. “Pathologist says the stiff had a heart attack!”

“Pipe down!” Lestrade tried to caution, motioning to the audience, but was drowned by Haynes’s pick-your-own solution as he rattled off, “That’s it then, drinking, smoking, spicy food with his Pakistani mate, not used to the –”

“Oh, I say! Hey, you!” cried the dean, waving his arms at the tall thin figure who’d…pushed through the cordon to the wall of the Fleming building and was – “Vandal! Hooligan! Stop him, someone!”

The student had finished his graffiti and easily evaded the three idiots from a local security firm the college employed. Lestrade stared after the young hooded man dashing away in the direction of Exhibition Road.

“…murdered.”

The word, deep, smooth, came back on the breeze, and Lestrade demanded, “What was that? What did he say? Who was that?”

The small group of students remaining were silent, looking at one another, and it was Morris who replied, ‘“He was murdered.”’ She shrugged, not bothering to chase the figure. No one was. The dean was still moaning on about the graffiti, the blatant, wanton destruction.

“Jesus! It’s only chalk,” said Lestrade, rolling the discarded stick over with his foot, making it flake against the concrete. It was about then it struck him as strange.

“Lost him, sir.” The head of campus security came over on an electric trike, for God’s sake. He saw where they were all looking. “I’ll clean that off for you, sir.”

“No!” Lestrade wasn’t sure, about anything really, here, but this… He bagged up the chalk and copied down the symbols scrawled on the wall.

“He doesn’t even go here,” the three-wheeler tosser was saying to them, as if that made it better. “I remember him earlier, pushing his way into this cordoned-off area, claiming he had an interview here, or something. He had a uni sweatshirt on but ID from somewhere else.”

“Where.” Lestrade knew his voice was sharper than the situation seemed to warrant.

“Cambridge.” The security boss’s voice dripped disgust, and he escorted the shocked dean away from the area.

Cambridge? Like Ashby? Lestrade studied the chalked signs.

“Graffiti? Looks like homework!” Haynes kicked at the wall. “And chalk? In this day and age? Never heard of spray paint? What is he, an old-school vandal?”

“Not a vandal. It’s a message,” muttered Lestrade, his mind limping back to chemistry at school. **CKI** : he didn’t know that one. Under it was written **K**. That was potassium, he remembered. Next to that, **Cl**. And at the bottom, **NaCl**.

“Hey, kid. Sorry; sonny. Geezer. Whatever you want to be called.” This to the blond lad, Ashby’s student. “Lend me that book. I’ll give you a receipt. And a pair of scissors to trim your sodding fringe with.”

And he got a bollocking later for having said that, but no praise for holding back the, “and a bastard-big tub of zit cream to share with your mates,” he could have added. And he also learnt two things, one through being told, and the other through research.

Firstly, Dr Dutta didn’t drink, or smoke, or eat excessively salty or spicy food, and would not encourage such behaviour in a friend, and had never seen it in David.

And secondly, CK1 was potassium chloride. Lestrade almost wanted to smile at what he must look like, sweating over a chemistry textbook, but his research led him to understand that this chemical compound broke down into its individual components, potassium and chloride, both substances naturally occurring in the human body. So move along, nothing to see here in an autopsy.

Yet he wouldn’t give up. A later chapter told him chloride binds with the human body's naturally occurring sodium, to create sodium chloride: NaCl. Also known as common table salt. What? A phone call later he had the answer that yes, Ashby’s body had a slightly elevated level of NaCl. No; potassium normal. Well, he’d expected that – potassium didn’t bind to anything. But Dr Ashby’s book showed him that too much potassium chloride in the body induces a very fast heart rate, which then leads to something known as ventricular fibrillation, which is one of many types of cardiac arrest. No; Ashby’s heart attack had no known cause, but…Lestrade wondered if he’d found one.

Someone had induced a heart attack? Who? Why? What had that poor old sod done to anyone? He’d lived a blameless life at Cambridge, content with his research, his wife, his mates… Lestrade found himself back at the wall early the next day, some urban priest – not priestess – searching for the oracle. No; no Sybil about here. The words had been rubbed off. Some modern-day Belshazzar, scared. God, his mind was grinding away at this. Exceedingly small. He still had the stick of chalk in the plastic Ziploc bag, so he shook it out, and wrote **WHY?** , colouring in the big, thick letters.

Then felt stupid, then and later, all the time he was searching through the pictures of the students enrolled at Imperial, doubly so because he hadn’t seen the face of the one he was searching for, and all the way to work, telling himself over and over he wouldn’t, couldn’t go to Cambridge university and…

Not Cambridge but Oxford! At least, that was what the letter said, the letter that came for him, telling him of his prize, the weekend stay at the Randolph Hotel he’d surprisingly won. Surprising because it was this weekend, i.e. tomorrow. And also surprising as Lestrade didn’t recall having entered the competition, any competition really, and was pretty sure he’d never read _Country Life_ in his life, country or urban. He phoned the person who’d signed the letter, some posh bird in the mag’s marketing department, and was warmly congratulated on his success. He phoned the Randolph, and whatever snotty-voiced bloke was on the desk assured him they were looking forward to seeing him and placing a fruit basket in his room, and…

On the short journey from Paddington the next morning, not having made any more progress on the case the day before, his mind wondered a little, creating fanciful scenarios in which tall and posh was there, maybe even waiting for him? Yeah right. With a whole box of coloured chalk. He must have been a kid, mustn’t he? A student? So, young. Unless his ID was fake? But what had he been doing there? Was he the murderer, returned to the scene of the crime, in approved detective novel fashion? And just trying to help them solve his crime? Schizophrenic? Gloating?

And more to the point, what was Lestrade doing here? This was really stupid, when he had proper work to be getting on with, for the first case he was lead investigating officer on! What the fuck was making him behave like this?

Lestrade was glad to pull into Park End Street station, and gladder to find it a short walk into the centre of Oxford. That stretch wasn’t as pretty as he’d been led to believe, although the hotel was big and imposing, of course. It looked like a cross between a cabinet office, all those flags, and a cathedral, with its pointed bits and arched windows. He walked slowly around the foyer. Bloody hell, this was posh. All carved bits and carpeted bits and nooks with sofas and tables and more alcoves with fireplaces and that bar!

And no tall, skinny bloke waiting for him. And too early to check in. No problem: he wanted to see the town. Oh, yes, this was the stuff: memorials, churches, pubs, colleges in that gold stone – and a demonstration or march in progress along the High Street. Abandoning all thoughts of a nice pub for a pre-lunch drink, Lestrade joined the group of placard- and paper-bearing people who’d not long got off those coaches just up there – he couldn’t make out where they were from. Not from here.

He didn’t know why, but it seemed the right thing to do, to tag along. Seemed to him all this movement and energy would attract people. The group was all ages, men and women and children, from somewhere in the Midlands, it seemed, and they started chanting slogans about a hall, save the hall, as they walked down Oriel Street to Merton Lane, gathering a few more of the curious to swell their number on the way. Lestrade read the name of the college they stopped outside. Merton. ’Course.

And the group, now definitely chanting they wanted an answer about their village hall, attracted hecklers.

“Ooooh arrrr! Ger orf my land!”

“Get back to the farm, hayseeds!”

“Bloody peasants! Bumpkins! Rustics!” All these last vituperative shouts were coming from one direction and sounded similar, and Lestrade turned, because he caught a flash of red, and yes – there was a tall, thin bloke wearing a hooded Imperial College sweatshirt, at the back of an Oxford crowd! As before, he couldn’t make out the features, not even the eyes, but he felt their power, their compulsion. Even as Lestrade started to move, the bloke pushed his way out of the line and fled. Despite his attempts, despite his warrant card – which of course was not Thames Valley police – Lestrade couldn’t get through more than the middle, especially now police and TV cameras and reporters were swelling the throng. With a curse, he realised he’d lost him.

Angry, he turned back to see the leaders, he guessed, of the protest standing at the college door, the reporter getting them into line. The disparate nature of the crowd struck him, and he nudged the old woman next to him. She was clutching small children, trying to stop them hitting each other with the papers everyone was carrying.

“Excuse me. This crowd. It’s –”

“Yes – the whole village! All eighty homesteads!” She shushed him as some bloke began to talk. “Our parish county councilor,” she said.

Lestrade wasn’t too interested in him, more the bloke next to him. Him he recognised, an ex-England rugby captain. And next to him, that ancient crooner, currently getting a second wind with judging that talent show and singing the latest Eurovision song. Strange mix. Stranger too the woman next to them, very slim and pixy-ish – wasn’t she that model who’d given it up to marry…the man she was arm-in-arm with, some unknown landowning minor aristocrat?

“Save our hall!” cried the councilor, a cry which was echoed by the village. “The Merton warden, fellows and bursar refuse to meet us, so we’ve come to them! Typical of the treatment we’ve had since the college bought up the farmland in 1936, although we’ve always paid the rent on time!”

“It’s a pound a year, and the first crop of apples from the farm!” the granny informed Lestrade.

  
“We’ve kept the hall in good repair ourselves, and now they won’t renew the lease and want to develop the property. The hall is the heart of the village. It’s where the daycare crèche is held, it’s been our primary school for years and where we hold functions, social, charity – it brings the community together.” This met with cheers. “We need a village more than Merton needs the profits from building houses!”

  
“The lease was always a gentleman’s agreement, but it seems the new administration here are no gentlemen!” This from the singer, and yeah, some student wags in the crowd were calling out the names of his hits, shouting requests.

  
“This village rocks!” Now the cockney waif had the mic in lieu of her bashful husband. “Everyone’s here for each other!” She got cheers and whistles.

  
“Sadly, one person isn’t, although he was scheduled to be. Dr Richard Craven, despite the great successes he obtained both here in Oxford and in the US, never forgot his roots.” The councilor paused against the murmurs and whispers. “His great friend from childhood, another local, promised to attend instead, despite not being so well-known and spending his life in, well, the other place.” This got jeers from the students in the crowd. “But equally sadly, Dr David Ashby can’t be with us either.”

  
The villagers might have looked confused, but this was when Lestrade understood. He slid the paper free of a kid’s hand and read the story, of the history of the village hall, and that humble though the small school it housed may be, it had given many people a solid start in life, and all who attended it remained loyal to their roots and their friends, creating a loving, supportive community in the heart of England.

People like Dr Ashby, who had been one of the pupils, along with…Dr Richard Craven. All Lestrade knew about him was that he’d recently allegedly killed himself, not long after being ridiculed, rubbished, hounded even, after speaking out against government claims that a certain Arab country was manufacturing chemical battlefield weapons, ones that could be ready in forty-five minutes of an order to use them. So he’d worked in Oxford while Ashby made his career in Cambridge, but they’d been great lifelong friends.

Lestrade retrieved his bag from the hotel and caught the next train back to London. There was nothing else for him here. No reason to hang around, pampering himself. Not when his, what, guardian? guide? would have gone. And he had research to do. Might as well be back at uni himself. Never worked as hard when he was there, though. And he might not be any kind of scientist himself but he could understand Dr Craven’s point, that his field of research enabled him to state with complete certainty the accelerant UN soldiers had found and claimed was part of the ‘death factory’ wouldn’t have those properties in the hot temperatures there. It couldn’t be used for chemical weapons purposes, and he doubted there were such bomb factories, as would anyone who worked in this area, anyone who dared speak up…

Anyone who might dare speak up to help a friend, for instance. A friend who might have sent him documents, research, say, on a very sensitive issue. God. This was a potential nightmare.

“Julie. Yeah, I know it’s the weekend. I just wondered what you were up to.” Lestrade forced a twinkle into his eyes and a husk into his voice although she couldn’t see him on the phone. “Not a date as such, no – always imagined you too busy for me! Just, this case. I need your help. Yeah. Today.”

Which was how they were sitting slumped down in an unmarked car much later, staking out an empty flat, Mrs Ashby having left for home, Cambridge, when they saw the black van and four dark-clothed figures emerge from it to shimmer through the darkness and enter the flat. It was stealthy, smooth, and professional. And sneaking in after them to confront them was…not the success he’d imagined it would be.

Not the first time he’d been attacked, not the first time he’d been knocked out. His first thoughts were for DC Morris as he came round…in an anonymous office in a nondescript building, to find DI Hunter, incandescent with rage, probably at having been pulled in at the weekend.

“That tart? Oh, she told us everything, how you convinced her this was sanctioned, got her in on it.”

Good for Morris, sticking to the story no matter how scary the circumstances.

“I said to leave it the fuck alone!”

“Jack.” Christ, the superintendent! Along with a handful of suits. The same four blokes? Not coppers. Not…army. “You told the inspector to leave it alone through laziness, not because of any protocol.”

“I didn’t know! Sir.” This came later, Hunter’s tight skin pulling and reddening under the force of his emotions.

“Obviously. This was need to know, and we knew you wouldn’t touch it, so didn’t need to know.”

“Defence Intelligence.” Lestrade indicated the four men. He’d been reading about them, them and Dr Craven.

“MI6,” confirmed the superintendent. “You’re lucky you haven’t been arrested. Both of you.” This to Hunter. “For different reasons. Overzealousness is as bad as laziness.”

“With all due respect sir, I don’t –”

“Care.” The superintendent glared at Lestrade. “These men wish a little chat with you about security and safety and counter-terrorism and national interest and, oh, other things. Because we’re all on the same side. Aren’t we?” Lestrade jumped at the force in the last two words. He nodded. He’d known, of course he had, that any government worked towards…an agenda and that meant life wasn’t all sunshine and picnics, but to stare it in the face, see the dirt in the pores… Well, he was a rough tough copper. He could handle it.

The next day he was still wondering whether the words of praise from the dark-suited goons and their veiled offer to him to think about changing jobs, consider getting into what they did, made it better or worse. Flattering? Not really. He’d no intention of miring himself in that. And he couldn’t claim much credit for working things out. He was more relieved they’d said he wouldn’t be fired, wouldn’t have any kind of stain on his record.

Hard truths were…hard. And he was back at the wall, his half-arsed version of the Bocca della Verità, one with no mouth, still seeking whatever it was he was. He didn’t even have any chalk with him.

“You were right,” he called out, not caring who heard, thought him a loony. “And thank you. You’ve made my life more painful, but thank you. I’d rather know.”

*****

 

A TALL, LURKING FIGURE which had seemingly strayed from a guided Open Day tour, a pupil from some horrendous new-money school, or so his rah uniform of fawn chinos, pink linen shirt, cravat, sunglasses and pulled-low flat tweed cap denoted, stiffened at those words, then nodded in response. He knew he’d caused difficulties, but he’d obtained a measure of truth for a man whom he’d respected, a man whose book he’d read when he was young and whose lectures he’d enjoyed in his first year. A man whose only crime had been to be a good friend to someone who’d pissed off the establishment and to be presumed to have a similar honest ethical agenda. And to have to be stopped.

Huh. Getting under the skin of the powers that be. Who did that remind him of? Oh yes. Someone who was under strict orders not to get involved in anything pertaining to father’s and Mycroft’s work. Well, he’d obeyed their edicts, their commands. He hadn’t contacted anyone directly or indirectly. Which had made it more of a challenge. More fun. But now, seeing that lone figure sitting before the wall… He turned his back to it and raised his hands to make them into a cup shape, make his voice carry.

“Carl Powers was murdered too. Those police were wrong to ignore me because I was a kid and an easy target.” He hadn’t really known he was going to say that. But now he turned and whipped off the stupid, pathetic dark glasses and stared at Detective Sergeant Lestrade, a man not as stupid and pathetic as the rest, lancing him with a flash of piercing grey-blue eyes before he bolted. He’d thrown that name from the past out like a weapon, but couldn’t stay to see it strike home.

If he had, Sherlock had no doubt he would have seen Lestrade sagging as if from a punch to the chest or a knife to the guts. No; he didn’t need to look. He knew what his role was, to his family, and now to Detective Sergeant Lestrade, and one day, to London herself. Maybe the last two were connected. Time would tell.  
Come the day…

 

“Long before you were born  
You were always to be a dagger floating  
Straight to their heart.”  
 _The Rifle’s Spiral_ , the Shins


End file.
